Alfonso Cuarón took home Best Director at the 86th annual Academy Awards on Sunday. He won for his work on "Gravity," the space epic that's collected more than $700 million in worldwide ticket sales.

Cuarón topped Steve McQueen ("12 Years a Slave"), Alexander Payne ("Nebraska"), David O. Russell ("American Hustle") and Martin Scorsese ("The Wolf of Wall Street") for the award. Prior to this year, the director had three Oscar nominations to his name: two for 2006's "Children of Men" (Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing) and another for 2001's "Y tu Mamá También" (Best Original Screenplay). "Gravity" turned him into a six-time nominee: in addition to Best Director, Cuaron was also nominated at this year's ceremony as a co-producer of "Gravity" (which received a Best Picture nod) and a co-editor.

Cuarón was heavily favored to win Best Director thanks in part to the innovative technology used to film "Gravity," which was made for $100 million. He also nabbed top honors from the Directors Guild of America, which is considered a reliable prognosticator for the Best Director Oscar, Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards.

For continuous Oscar updates, check out our live blog below.

live blog

An historic night for Steve McQueen and "12 Years a Slave," wins for Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong'o, seven Oscars for "Gravity" and no love for "American Hustle." These were your 2014 Oscars. Hope you enjoyed it!

Bette Midler sang "Wind Beneath My Wings" after the list of deceased stars was shown. Among those stars left out of the In Memoriam segment were Cory Monteith and James Avery. Sarah Jones, the camera woman who was killed on the set of "Midnight Rider," the Gregg Allman bio film, was also not mentioned.

That would be the ultimate. Never say never! Fate has been very good to me. I've been in the right place at the right time for the last 20 years. For one thing, it would give a lot of people the chance to see me. "Wow, that's Darlene Love. She really can sing! And she looks good."